Voices, Narrative, Characters and Subtext in Creative Writing Flashcards
Why are Voices cruicial to writers?
Voices mark characters out, and characters are the heart of the story.
What are some ways a character can say they are late?
- Late again, that’s me.
- This watch has let me down all week: it’s useless.
- Please may I apologise profusely for my tardiness. Inexcusable of me.
- How come it’s always you that’s on time, and never me?
- Okay, so I am late, So what?
What considerations are important in creating a voice?
- Implied attitude of speaker.
- Building character by indirect means.
- No intrigue if character annonces everything about themselves.
- Voice has to be established by actions.
- Equally important is what is not said and not undertaken.
Introduce the role of a narrator in a story, and some options?
The narrative point of view is important to consider when writing a story. If you use a neutral narrator the significance of voice pass to greater degree to characters. Also you can tell a story from the point of view of one of the characters, either involved in the action or in periphery. Pheripheral narrator is witness narrator.
What is a device authors use with first person narrators to create tension in the story? And what does that force the reader to do?
Sometimes these narrators are made unreliable, which is a device many creative writers use to create tension, make the reader assess and reassess their own response.
What components make a story, in addition to voice?
Structure, Time, Theme, Plot - the characterisation comes from what the narrator and chacters do as well as say.
What does Sol Stein suggest a good dialogue needs to be and what does that mean?
A good dialogue needs to be oblique, that is contain indirect responses. Although it is easy to derail by never writing straightforward conversation. Lines should sometime stray in suprising directions. Example: Talk about need for new tyre, response talk about boy trust at Exxon. p. 123. Obliqueness invites us to speculate about the character.
What is the definition of sub-text?
Subtext is what the conversation beneth the words is communicating, both between characters and to the reader/audience. Harold Pinter referes to two kinds of subtext -implication of characters not speaking, and there being silence, and implication of what they actually mean when they are speaking. What characters say doesn’t necessarilty coincide with what he or she means.
What does screenwriter Jules Feiffer say about sub-text?
Working with subtext is a matter of understanding perfectly what’s really going on, what’s not going on and why it’s not, and how much of it will show on the surface, You have to leave some of the subtext for the audience to work out for itself, as a member of an audience I love to be forced to think and be challenged.
